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Sad to miss a week- I hope everything is alright.

SPIRAL
I may be in the minority but I actually enjoyed this episode. Yes, you have to suspend your disbelief A LOT (cuz medieval knights riding around in broad daylight is so subtle) but besides that it’s a pretty good episode.
It was great to finally have some sense of urgency and danger. As much as I like Glory as a villain, she just was never that threatening. This episode finally made me feel like there was something at stake and seeing Buffy that worried really pulled me into the episode. Also, when Buffy says that a truck hit Glory and Anya says, “You threw it at her?” chuckles were had.
As far as the decision to run away- it seemed like a pretty great decision to me for the circumstances. They have no way of stopping Glory and she knows that Dawn is the key, the only sensible thing to do is get out of there and find a place to regroup until they figure out how to kill, or at the very least hurt, her. I was surprised that Giles and Xander wouldn’t think so.
One thing that has been bugging me in the past few episodes is that no one seems to really acknowledge that Willow is the one that has been most effective against Glory. Buffy says that Spike has to come along because he’s the only one besides her that can help protect Dawn. From what I can remember, the only one to really slow down Glory has been Willow- at the beginning of this episode she’s the one that blocked her with a forcefield or somehting so that Buffy could get a head start with Dawn. Anyway, I just thought it should be acknowledged.

I think it helped that I watched this episode with my kids who really got into the Knights and the big fight over the winnebago – at 8 and 10 they had no problem with suspension of disbelief – I couldn’t help but enjoy it too.

But, some things I didn’t like so much. I don’t mind the Knights generally, and I liked it when they added to the threat level in Checkpoint. But that seems ages ago and I don’t know what they have been doing since or how they suddenly know how to find the group in the middle of nowhere.

Ben’s character: I thought it could be interesting to make him a potential threat to Dawn too but I didn’t really ever believe him to be and I just felt confused about his motivations. When he went out to help Giles I didn’t know what his plans were and why he didn’t anticipate morphing into Glory.
Glory herself is seeming a bit scarier although she often seems to act a bit slow of the mark. I like the massacre at the end although it feels like she has this immense power that we haven’t seen put to use.

I liked Buffy’s collapse at the end. It felt appropriate after adding and adding to the pressure that’s she feeling that she would just flake and give up when she see’s what she’s up against.

So now the kids aren’t jumping up and down I feel a bit non-plussed about this episode.

TOUGH LOVE
I felt exactly as Robin with the fight between Willow and Tara. It made logical sense that they might fight over those things (although the lesbian thing came out of nowhere), but I didn’t feel it. It wasn’t a very passionate fight at all. It felt like a regular discussion that just soured and ended awkwardly.

But I felt like Dawn’s conversation with Spike made sense after Buffy reveals that she may lose guardianship of Dawn if she can’t keep her in school. That kind of burst her whiny teen bubble for a moment and got her thinking about someone besides herself. So her guilt about acting like a brat when Buffy was just trying to keep her home kind of mixed with her feelings about what happened to Tara. Thinking about being the key and not a “real” person is obviously on her mind a lot judging from her outburst about not wanting to do schoolwork. So it made sense to me that she would go there.

A couple observations:
does Willow’s wardrobe seem more “grown up” since her comment in The Body about her clothes having ridiculous cartoon animals on them?

Also, are Willow’s black magic eyes the same as Doc’s black eyes? They seemed the same to me. This took me on a bit of a rabbit hole search to figure out if there was a connection between the reptile cobra thing that Glory transmogrified in Shadow, and Doc’s tail, but the internet failed me. Maybe someone here has a better memory.

SPIRAL
I didn’t enjoy this episode very much the first time around, mostly because I was anxious to get to the end of the season and see how the Glory battle ended up. It benefits from rewatch though, because I enjoyed all the little interactions between the characters, like Spike and Xander’s chat in the room where the General is being held. It does seem slow considering all the tension leading up to the finale, although there are a lot of good moments.

I’m not sure I understand Ben’s motivations in this episode though. We know that he really loved his work as an intern because he wanted to help people, so why does he go to Buffy when he probably knows that Dawn is there and she isn’t safe if he turns into Glory? The smart thing to do would have been to get in, grab Giles, and get out as fast as possible. But he wants to stick around and help? There’s that misdirection scene with the needle where you think that he might try to kill Dawn, but I don’t think that fits with his character, unless the only person he really wants to help is himself. From what we know about Ben so far, it doesn’t seem like he would want to kill Dawn, when keeping her alive but safe accomplishes the same goal (he gets to keep his body).

The episode has some really amazing scenes. So much happens in it. Glory gets hit by a truck, Ben thinks about killing Dawn (not very convincing), there’s a trailer, crazy people, flaming arrows, a big battle, great fight scenes and big revelations about Glory’s plans and (her alter ego) Ben. All in all a good and decent episode but far away from pretty good in my opinion.

The Bad:
– How could the knights (stupid costumes!!) know where the Scoobies are?
– Buffy carrying Dawn was awkward

My favourite scene is the last scene when Buffy suffers an emotional breakdown and collapses. Can’t wait for the next episode!